Pro/Con: Is America great?

   On West Shore Drive, south of Riley Street near Belle Tire, waves the largest American flag in Holland, Michigan. It’s gigantic, but its purpose is the same as any other flag: Remind Americans of the ideals this country was built on. The white stars and stripes represent its purity and innocence, the blue represent vigilance, perseverance, and justice, and the red represents its valor. Does the country follow through with what the flag represents? Is America a good or bad place?

America is a great country. 

   Some say that a country is defined by its rules, and that its laws and regulations define it. I believe that this is false: A country is nothing without the people within it and the ideals they subscribe to. At every turn, regardless of the actions of the U.S. government, the American people have proven themselves to be what makes the United States great.

White represents innocence.

It’s difficult to honestly say that everything the U.S. government and people have done is truly innocent. With that being said, we’re certainly a country that values innocence more than most.

The United States was one of the first countries to adopt a true “innocent until proven guilty” system. The founding fathers made the bold decision to create such a justice system when their parent country, England had quite the opposite. Benjamin Franklin once famously said, “it is better 100 guilty persons should escape than that one innocent person should suffer.”

While the government hasn’t always stayed true to this ideal, Americans have never lost sight of it. Despite programs like the War on Drugs, which aimed to incarcerate as many Americans as possible for drug offenses, defense attorneys and groups like the Innocence Project have been fighting to return the rights of wrongfully accused people to our justice system.

One beneficiary of The Innocence Project, Kenneth Adams, faced 75 years in prison when he was wrongfully convicted of rape. After lawyers from The Innocence Project proved him to be wrongfully convicted through DNA evidence, he was freed from prison after only 18 years. His story was a success, but it only happened because of donations from regular Americans who passionately care about the lives of their innocent peers. Americans donate over $20 million per year to the Innocence Project to keep wrongfully incarcerated people out of jail, showing just how much they value innocent lives.

Red represents valor.

There is no greater example of bravery and valor than the stories of active duty military and veterans living in the United States. West Ottawa’s own Nate Townsend served in the U.S. Air Force, and can speak to how military service changed him. He says, “I understand the sacrifice that comes with military service… I don’t think anybody truly goes into the military because of the money or perks.”

Brave Americans enter the military despite the risk, and that risk is considerable. Every year, thousands of soldiers die in service in the U.S. military, a fact that doesn’t weaken their resolve. They understand the risk, and choose to continue anyways, because they are fighting for a country they believe is worth fighting for. “If anything, military service has taught me how great this country truly is, and how lucky we are to live in a country like this,” Townsend said.

The U.S. has a larger military population than any other country on the planet. There are 19 million veterans living in the U.S. today, more than the entire population of Norway and Cuba combined. and the people back home rightfully glorify them for their bravery. In the past year, the U.S. veteran’s affairs department, which is to provide a comfortable transition when veterans arrive back home, received $101 million in donations and gifts from everyday Americans. Not only that, over 25,000 Americans donated their time towards veterans, accounting for a combined 2.6 million hours of volunteer work.

Other Americans choose to honor veterans through activities like Veteran’s Day parades and memorial services. Every Veterans Day, New York City has a Thanksgiving-sized parade for their veterans. This past year, the parade included a whopping 200,000 veterans and many more supporters lining the streets.

Veterans are the epitome of bravery, and U.S. citizens rightfully show them their utmost respect.

Blue represents vigilance, perseverance, and justice. 

Americans are the very definition of resilience. Americans persist with grit and hope through political turmoil, unjust laws, and national crises.

Immigrating to the U.S. is no easy feat. There is a lengthy process of applications, processing, and acceptance required to immigrate, which can take years or even decades. Anyone with the patience and passion for this country to join it is someone the U.S. should certainly want.

Despite the many hurdles, the United States has the largest immigrant population of any country. The U.S. has so many immigrants that it’s often called a “nation of immigrants,” meaning that nearly every American comes from ancestors who had to fight to get here.

And life hasn’t been easy for this “nation of immigrants,” even when they arrive safe and sound. Immigrants earn on average $5,000 less than other Americans, despite both groups having similar educational backgrounds (approximately 32% of both immigrants and non-immigrants have a bachelor’s degree or higher).

The spirit of immigrant populations is what drives American’s philosophy. Americans live for hard work, they persevere through unfair and sometimes cruel treatment, and they aspire for something more regardless of their background.

And Americans have been through a lot, whether it be security crises like 9/11 and Pearl Harbor, or economic crises like the Great Depression or the Great Recession. These catastrophes may speak to the country’s flaws, but Americans’ response to these tragedies shows nothing but resilience.

In response to the Great Recession, which led to a whopping 25% unemployment rate, Americans came together to force political action from the economically conservative Bush administration. They then elected President Obama, who promised and delivered a comprehensive relief package which eventually got the country out of the recession. They never hung their heads in the face of the overwhelming economic crisis: They instead mobilized for their rights.

In 2020, in the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Americans fought the virus in the face of hundreds of thousands of deaths. Many voluntarily wore masks or get vaccinated to protect not only themselves but also others. Americans also had the intelligence and bravery to fast-track vaccines at the fastest pace ever, which created multiple vaccines that have since saved millions of lives.

America is not a great place. 

White represents innocence.

Our American leaders do not promote purity and innocence; they encourage and accept its killing. Far too many innocent lives have been lost due to gun violence in America. In our home state of Michigan, Oxford High School was a victim of gun violence.

On November 30th, 2021, four lives were lost at Oxford High School. Tate Myre, 16, Hana St. Juliana, 14, and Madisyn Baldwin, 17, Justin Shilling, 17, were all innocent high school children who were failed by America’s lazy attitude towards mass shootings. They died just three hours east of West Ottawa High School. Even after this tragedy, lawmakers have put no new legislation into place to ensure innocent children’s lives. Children in the United States deserve to feel safe and protected at school.

As of December 4th, 2022, there have been 620 mass shootings in the US. Many in America don’t know what it is like to go a week without hearing about a mass shooting. Many wonder if their community will be next.

French exchange student Chedna Dourou shares her French friends’ warnings about America. She says, “My friends told me to be careful because of the school shootings that occur in America.” She used the word “serial” to describe the mass shootings. “In France we are not allowed to buy guns as a citizen. You have to be in the military to have a gun. It is kinda weird to know that everyone can have a gun,” she said. Guns are a part of American culture and many are too comfortable with the accessibility of automatic weapons that cause mass destruction.

Our country is compliant with the amount of mass shootings and losing innocent lives. How can a country claim to be great with faults like this? Our government leaders have taken no effective actions. Our flag promotes purity and innocence, but we do not reflect that when we discuss mass shootings.

Red represents valor. 

We claim to be champions of the people, but instead we are the cowardly champions of corporate America. How could we claim to have valor? Those in America’s top one percent are blinded by their comfort and have forgotten about the less fortunate. When they are shown their faults and their negative effect on those in poverty, they refuse to acknowledge them and run away from the problem. We have let this problem persist for too long. The economic disparities in the United States are inexcusable and it is time that there is legislation put in place to protect our nation’s obligations to the less fortunate.

According to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development,  “income inequality in the U.S. is the highest of all the G7 nations.” The gap between the poor and rich is larger than many think. Pew Research found that “the wealth gap between America’s richest and poorest families more than doubled from 1989 to 2016.” To put it into perspective, check out this scale that compares the median U.S. household income to Jeff Bezos wealth.

In 2018, Jeff Bezos announced the launch of his new organization, the “Bezos Day One Fund.” He invested two billion dollars into the organization and claimed that it would help other organizations to impact their community.

Bezos’ investment sounds great before considering that he has enough money to end homelessness in the United States. As of December 6th 2022, Jeff Bezos has a net worth of  117.5 billion dollars. It would cost around 20 billion dollars to solve homelessness in the United States. Bezos is an example of the greed of the top one percent. He could have a large impact on those less fortunate, but deliberately chooses not to.

Alejandra Antron Ramos is an employee at AMC and has been for about a year and a half. She shares the frustrations of many minimum wage workers. AMC had a profit of 3.86 billion dollars this year [as of November 29th]. The company has implemented price increases on many of its commodities to combat inflation, but they have not done the same for their workers’ wages. It is imperative that companies pay their employees a fair and living wage. Antron Ramos shares “The company is financially irresponsible. The higher-ups in the company disregard theaters’ needs while managers are forced to make the best of an impossible situation with unreliable resources.” This is an example of the neglectful behavior of those in the top one percent.

Many gas companies have had significant profits because of inflation, meanwhile lower-income people struggle to pay for gas.

Gary Corell, Assistant Director of Transportation says “an athletic trip cost $4.75/mile until this fall. Our current cost is $4.95/mile. That is a significant increase. This increase in cost may be prohibitive to some groups that may be taking field trips that West Ottawa does not pay for.”

Those not in the top one percent are constantly being left behind and having to play catch up their whole lives. Our country should not run away from the problem; it should implement legislation to ensure people are getting fair chances for wealth and income.

Blue represents justice.

The blue in our flag represents justice. We take so much pride in our justice system, but it has failed Americans over and over. Our country sits in compliance with the justice system, even though we know its faults.

One problem with the justice system is mandatory minimum sentencing. Every crime has a minimum sentence, even if the crime has unusual circumstances. More than half of federal inmates are incarcerated under these mandatory provisions, but there is no correlated increase in public safety. Keeping people that are convicted of non-violent crimes in prison longer does not contribute to lowering the crime rate.

Our country keeps people in prison too long, which is one reason why we have one of the highest incarceration rates in the world.  As of 2022, there are over two million people incarcerated in the United States.

   Another one of the justice system’s faults is its lack of accountability for prosecutors and law enforcement. It is important that those enforcing and protecting the law follow due process to ensure fair treatment for those who are arrested. There have been many incidents when law enforcement has not been held accountable and has abused its role of power.

From 2013 to 2019, roughly 99% of officers involved in killings faced no criminal charges. Some in law enforcement have been caught fabricating evidence, falsely arresting innocents, racially profiling, and using excessive force. American police need more training to make sure they are equipped with the tools necessary to deal with difficult situations that they are not always trained to handle.

As Americans we must hold those accountable who deserve to be. Our country prides itself on valuing justice, but is it really given when it’s due? America needs to provide the fair justice system it claims to have.